You will still experience it, it will be ready at the end of 2025 and S21 will go into test operation by the end of the year in 2026. After that you can enjoy something that only exists in the world in Stuttgart. But now you can already travel with the ICE from Ulm to Wendlingen or vice versa on the new S21 route
At first glance it looks like this...but this was never to make mass transport better. The Project is about real estate. There is a lot of money to be made in the huge area where the old tracks were. Stuttgart is one of the richest Citys in Germany. Some say the new Station can handle less traffic than the old. What makes me think that could be true? Germany has one of the worst Trains Services in Europe, overpriced and famous for its delays. It was cut back the last years by ex Daimler Benz, now DB CEOs. I wonder why? But i might have something to do with our Car Industry.
Stuttgart had a working train station in that place before. A better train station. Now Stuttgart has a giant never ending construction site that most probably will be less capable when finished, costs a multifold of what was estimated and all just for a minor amount of money to be made by real estate. This project was doubtful when it was conceptualised and it has turned into a full blown desaster that is completely disproportionate. Also police blinded a pensioner who was protesting against this madness. Police never gets sentenced in Germany.
Funny how metro line 18 in Guangzhou has a higher top speed than this "high-speed rail" connection. Germany is a pretty great place to live in, but in some aspects it's so far behind.
@@Ruzzky_Bly4t Germany has a completely different rail system. We can transport military and goods on highspeed rails aswell. This is due to our history when the railsystem was build. So now it is a compromise. The faster rail systems in the world where especially build for high speeds. In Germany existing trails mainly upgraded. So we have multi use in case of a war for example but not as fast puplic transportation.
@@nicoxxl26 that was true but isn't any more. In fact freight traffic via rail has been neglected for decades. And the latest high speed railway lines are all running while the old railway tracks are still operational for regional passenger service and freight traffic. That applies to the latest high speed connection between Stuttgart and Ulm as well as the connections between Frankfurt and Cologne, München and Nürnberg, Stuttgart and Mannheim/Karlsruhe, Würzburg and Hannover. In fact, our politicians don't even intent to improve freight transport via rail as can read in the latest plan for federal traffic development - despite the fact that this could have a major impact on our emissions of climate relevant gases. One reason for that is the choice of federal ministers for traffic which during the last decades have always been staunch lobbyists for our automobile industry. In the end climate change isn't really a concern for politicians despite all rethoric - the worse the more right-leaning politicians are.
such videos (about long-lasting projects) never take inflation into account. 2.5B eur in 1995 equals 9.5B eur in 2023. of cause, a part of the money was spent earlier then 2023. but the premise - "the price is quadrupled!!!" - is annoying
Despite what the protestors said - btw they did not even accept the referendum that was 63% in favour of the project- Stuttgart 21 was necessary. High-speed connections to the west and east would have been impossible. The time to get to Ulm was cut from 90minutes to 30 minutes. The time to get to the airport will be cut from 30 minutes to 6 minutes. These are some massive speed gains. That the connection of the gäubahn to the south was added too late in the project is IMHO the biggest problem. It now needs an 11km tunnel - most of it unnecessarily tunneling under a forest.
The referendum was held in whole baden-württemberg even though only the people in and around stuttgart have to deal with the problems the Project and the construction work brings for 14 years now.
@@noahh.9120not really. First of all the people that live along the Gäubahn have to deal with disruptions for 8-10 years. The people of Ulm benefitted greatly from the high speed line. Also most of the people in Stuttgart aren’t affected at all. It’s only the people living next to the station that have to deal with the noise. And finally: it’s mainly financed by Germany and Baden-Württemberg. So why only ask people in Stuttgart? The hostility towards infrastructure projects is annoying. Just because bored pensioners want to protest again and don’t want any noise does not mean the country can just stop.
The high-speed line to Ulm has nothing to do with Stuttgart 21. Stuttgart 21 also only cuts down the time by less then 10 minutes. And that is only if the tunnels from Stuttgart 21 towards the Airport get approved. And if Stuttgart 21 gets approved. WHcih both is still not certain, since they both don't follow regulations for safety. It also decreases the truthput of trains per hour compared to the old trainstation.
@@noahh.9120 The outcome however affects the whole region. Many people in Baden-Württemberg travel to the regional capital (Stuttgart) on a regular basis. Be it for work, shopping or events.
One fun fact about the new high speed line Stuttgart - Ulm: Instead of the usual 300km/h the line was designed to only allow 250km/h in order to better follow the existing motorway and avoid additional fragmentation of the countryside. After construction started, some engineers figured out that by realigning some tunnel sections away from the motorway it would haven been possible to build the line for 300 km/h. Because of these realignments being in tunnels no additional fragmentation would have happened. There was also no significant price difference. Unfortunately, it was too late to change the ongoing construction. So the chance to speed up journeys even further and future proof the line at modern HSL standards has been missed. I mean China builds new lines at 350 km/h and Germany accidentally misses 300km/h for no good reason.
Yes, but in this case nobody would have objected to a different rail tunnel alignment in the country side. So there are many places where your argument is valid, but here I don't see it. I just wanted to highlight that 250 km/h is no longer considered state of the art for high speed. I mean some lesser used Chinese high speed lines are just planned for 200km/h. But all this talking about Paris-Bratislava let me feel the project owner believe it is not just some provincial connection.
@@SapienzBuchse Yeah, I love the 320km/h train to Paris. I wish all of Europe's trains are that fast! For about the same distance, I could get to Paris in 3 hrs, but more than 6 hrs for Amsterdam. That sucks.
All megaprojects since the three failed pyramids of Pharaoh Sneferu have suffered structural setbacks and financial and schedule overruns. Germany, like every other country, has had its share of these “disasters”, all of which have then miraculously become landmarks that are admired the world over. Nobody complains about the Elbphilharmonie and its price tag anymore, but everyone who sees it from afar or visits it is full of admiration. The same goes for the Sydney Opera House, almost every great cathedral ever built, and so on. Stuttgart 21 is no exception.
The problem with this "megaproject" is that its capacity falls short of projected passenger demands. All of Deutsche Bahn's projects fail. Just take a look at the "new" Augsburg Hbf, a massive fail as well.
Noone complains about the Elbphilharmonie anymore? Are you living under a rock? You don't talk to people frim Hamburg often, do you? And while we're at massive cost overrun failures... the BER is hardly considered a landmark. That's 2 out of 3 of the highest profile cost overrun failures. The third - Stuttgart 21 - is still to be seen. But thus far your point has no legs to stand on.
Channel Tunnel was built more or less on time, costs were £9 billion, that's a meager 1.6 cost overrun to the foreseen £5.5 billion. S21 ist now at 11.5 billion €, factor 2.5 over initial estimate of 4.5 billion. HS2 started at around 31 bn and guesstimations are now between 98 and 170 bn - depending which scope and whom you ask. So factor 3 ish. Currently the challenge ist led by HS2, but S21 isn't finished by far. There is still hope for us Germans 💪
Easily the biggest issue with Stuttgart 21 in my opinion is that the station only has 8 tracks, the old station had 16 terminus tracks, which is roughly the same capacity. If it had 12 tracks it would have a lot more support.
Today most regional lines starts/ends at the main station. When the new station is ready, regional lines will be combined so that 2 trains becomes 1 just passing through the station and continuing on to the other "extreme" direction. Furthermore, with the ETCS level 2 (And in the future LEVEL 3 and 4) the efficiency and speeds of trains arriving and departing will be drastically improved.
Jaja. Weil‘s das ZDF gesagt hat, gell? :) Ich bin mir sicher, dass bei einem Investitionsvolumen von 11 Milliarden Euro, tausend und abertausende Male nachgerechnet, geforscht und überprüft wird bis man die Anzahl der Gleise festlegt. Aber die Medienagenturen wissen es wahrscheinlich besser…
New York be like. Only 12 billion for 100km of track, tunnels, bridges and a station. Well that’s a bargain. The LIRR extension project (a new underground line to grand central terminal) costed 12,5 billion and that was only 3,5 miles of track and 4 tunnels (above each other)
I'm all for new rail infrastructure. The problem is the destruction of the existing one! An addition to the existing station would have been far better and cheaper. The existing station could have served regional trains and trains ending in Stuttgart, while the new station with 4 tracks and less tunnels could have served the long distance. The tunnel Bad Cannstatt and to Ober and Untertürkheim, the new yard, the P-Option and the Pfaffensteigtunnel wouldn't be necessary, still you would have a lot more capacity.
This was one of the versions under consideration. But assuming the airport station and the Abstellbahnhof were the same you'd still be building 70% of Stuttgart 21, but now there's the additional cost of modernising the old station and infrastructure (including the two 19th Century tunnels it relies on) - all of which has to be done whilst the station is in use, far more disruptive than S21. Plus you have to factor in not selling off the land and the long term loss of income for the city that would result. This is probably the most expensive option, is far worse in terms of redundancy (unless you build the two additional tunnels), and although there'd be undoubtedly more platforms that doesn't necessarily mean more capacity as the same bottleneck would exist in the north of the city. Probably the fancy new station would be empty most of the time, unless it's used much more extensively by regional trains and then the old station would sit empty.
@@Talon5516-tx3ih Du hast wohl schon den Schlichter Heiner Werner Geißler vergessen..? Der hatte zusammen mit den Schweizer Experten - SMA und Partner - eine Ausarbeitung vorgelegt, die den Kombibahnhof als bessere und günstigere Lösung präferiert hatte. 4 Gleise unten - mehr gibt der Raum und die Umgebung (Mineralwasserquellen usw.) genau genommen nicht her - und 10-12 Gleise oberirdisch. Aber das Ziel war ja die Grundstücke zu bekommen und NICHT einen geeigneten Bahnhof zu bauen…
The main issue was to put everything underground. Of course a terminus station is very inefficient if you want lots of HS rail that does not actually terminate. Not only the direction change that costs 5-9 minutes extra, but also trains blocking each other. A single delayed train can easily start a chain reaction. They should've built a smaller underground station just for high speed rail. Or alternatively, leave a few terminus tracks for trains of the Gäubahn. You could even build these slightly underground so you can still have green on top.
It depends. There are operational decisions you can make to ensure these turnarounds work faster. For instance, by ensuring a train driver is at the end of the platform to immediately take over the train. It may make crew rosters complex, but it is not impossible. Also, the approach to Stutgart station is actually very efficient with the flying junctions on the approach, meaning that incoming trains don't block outgoing trains. Also, in NL, at Utrecht Station they also turn around terminating trains from Rotterdam/Den Haag to Leeuwarden/Groningen/Enschede due to the track layout around Utrecht. This isn't something that takes that much time.
@@91Durktheturk I've witnessed a few times recently train drivers waiting at the end of the platform for an incoming ICE. So they do this already, though it isn't ideal. Also I assume when driverless trains become a reality there'll be no reason why a train can't make a 30 second stop and change direction. Stuttgart's Hbf is more efficient than it could be, but you see trains waiting all the time, blocked by other trains. The flying junctions sort of make it into a 2x 8-platform station and within those 8 platforms incoming and outgoing trains still constantly get in each other's way.
But they wanted to sell of the land where the old station and all its tracks are/were to real estate developers. That is the main purpose of the whole project, that's why your very reasonable and also kind of obvious solution was off the table and that is the reason why Stuttgart 21 is such a dumpster fire as a train station! 💁
Driverless trains have existed and been used in subways for almost two decades now. I don't think we're gonna see them be economical to use on above-ground rail lines anytime soon. I think if it was a good idea, it would have been done by now.
The thing about the potential damage to tunnels by quickly expanding and contracting rock around them isn't just the expansion and contraction. It's also the moisture itself. The rock rubbing through any moisture protection anytime a major bit of rain hits can deteriorate the structural integrity by soaking it faster than a more stable environment would. Even with the metre-thick tunnel walls they're using, there's only two tracks out each way in a single tube, so a single structural integrity issue will disable the entire station. Some of the above ground terminus platforms should have been planned to be retained from the get go, especially for the connection to Zürich, but developers always get the land they want to build pricy buildings to sell to rich mates.
There are 4 tracks out each way, each in its own tube. By contrast in the old station 99% of the trains go through one of two 19th century tunnels. Stuttgart is choc-full of tunnels, but that doesn't stop the crazies insisting that they're impossible to build here.
6:19 A small correction There is no high-speed line to Zurich (and none is planned). The line in question is the so-called Gäubahn/ Obere Neckarbahn, a largely single-track line to the south. Its later connection to the main station is not good, but on the whole bearable, as 2-3 tracks can be left at the main station for these passengers with “relatively” little effort. More Importantly, a good transfer point to the S-Bahn has been set up in the south of the city, so that a traveler will most likely only need 10 minutes longer. On the other hand, the actual new high-speed line to Ulm has already been in operation since 2022 and was thus completed 4 years before the rest.
To have a part of the terminal staying open would not be catastrophic - you still have all the new infrastructure. And you could even build buildings above tracks. Look at Shinagawa, Tokyo, where exactly this happens right now.
I think the main problem is that architecture has become performative: you have these big names doing things that are supposed to wow us in the moment, but those structures age badly and look old quickly. I would rather see a city like Stuttgart embrace it's historical architecture, including it's train station, and do something more subdued and based on traditional materials and techniques which age well and are aesthetically pleasant and grounded in local culture.
The whole project started as a real estate project: the rails had to be removed to generate land in the heart of the city. Where it’s most expensive. In order to generate building land from virtually worthless tracks, the station had to be removed. Moving the train station from the city center was not politically feasible.
@@sod1237The train station is fundet by the tax payer, not the development. Construction company earn twice. Building a rail station and developing the city center.
just imagine, they would have pumped all these billions into actually be a great service provider, instead of wasting it all on a prestige project! then the 50€ deutschlandticket would have stayed at 50€ im sure!
3:44 I was at the shown student demonstration and I was 12 years old. It was terrible to see the violence with which the police acted against the young people. Several police officers were convicted of violence in office. One man lost his sight due to water cannon.
@@sumlkar-v2j - 380 charges were filed against officers, 19 led to investigations - One officer was sentenced to 18 months probation for excessive baton use. - Two officers received seven-month suspended sentences. The water cannon commander fined 90 daily units. - Another officer fined 120 daily units at €50 each for using pepper spray unjustifiably; colleagues reported him. - A fourth officer’s case closed with a fine. - Stuttgarts Police President Siegfried Stumpf fined €15,600 for negligent bodily harm. - 2015 media evidence prompted criminal complaints for methods proposed to violate internal police regulations. - November 2015 - Stuttgart Administrative Court deemed the park-clearing operation unlawful and excessive, emphasizing the protest as a lawful assembly under Article 8 of the German Constitution.
Building tunnels is expensive. And in the last few years it has become more and more expensive. This made S21 more expensive. But this becomes very relative when comparing S21 with recently started or soon-to-be-started railway tunnel projects. At S21, a one-kilometer new rail route costs approximately 200 million Euro. Those recently started or soon-to-be-started railway projects with a similarly high percentage of tunnels will cost two or three times more per kilometer.
The new station will be a setback to my sport. Atleast twice in a week sbahn and DB bahn made me fit with their delays forcing me run between sbahn to main station to catch my train to Karlsruhe and vice-versa.I am sad now.
Dont worry, because the new train station can not accomodate the amount of people who use it, you can now train your upper body by pushing all the other passengers away when you go to your train
What worries me in particular is the selling off of so much railway right of way. Instead of consuming this highly functional land for real estate development, why can't they just build a new district somewhere closeby with a train station?
THe issue with that is, that building omn the former railway infrastructuzre is that it will increase tempretures in the city drastically, and will worsen air quality a lot
Delay and inflated costs is normal in Germany but this is an extreme case. All main stations across the county are now being turned into those "modern" buildings, I wish they could at least leave the frontage.
1. the old station building will remain in Stuttgart 2. the building is not really super historic. It was built by Paul Bonatz who operated in the 1920s. It is anachronistic, as truly modern building already existed in the 1920 (see Barcelona pavillion in the 1920s). Because of its anachronism, the Bonatz building is kinda trash tbh.
Living in the Stuttgart area from 1994 to 1999, I was impressed and intrigued with the plan. I'm sorry to see it is still facing so many obstacles, and am reminded of the "Big Dig" project I would hear about in Boston over many decades, which appeared to me to have provided great benefit when I lived in that area from 2011 to 2014.
A brief correction. "The new underground station can't be connected to the high speed rail line to Switzerland" - what! There is no high speed rail line to the south. There is the Gaubahn, which winds its way at a very sedate pace down to Singen. It is about as high speed as tortoise, without the same level of reliability.
Mistake OR megaproject? Why can't it be both? Edit: by the way, I'm curious to see what will happen when the notoriously unreliable Deutsche Bahn loses access to one of the tunnels leading to the station, or to a platform or two. This entire thing appears to be built for precision and efficiency. Yeah, good luck with that...
Missing the central criticism against Stuttgart 21. It's not a good railway project. It's a real estate project and corrupt money funnel to construction companies owned in part by the planners. The entire project was envisioned weeks after DB stopped being state owned. It has severe problems with potential flooding and evacuation in case of fires. It is technically not even a train station, but a train stop, because it doesn't fulfill the official requirements to be anything else.
You didn't focus on the main problem: The capacity of the new station will be less than the old one, this is not an investment in public transportation infrastructure, it's just a vanity project for old farts getting chauffeured around in a Daimler-Benz
Im not that deep into it but doesnt ECTS with a higher level allow for higher speeds and less distance between the trains + a lot of trains won't terminate at Stuttgart?
@@mr.priman As the video explained, there where NIMBYs demonstrating against some trees being cut down... instead of just planting some new trees on some field...
@@olska9498Those trees were like 100 years old and under historic protection. They rephrased the protection clause, took away the historic protection agency's veto rights and did it anyways.
One issue with the new underground station which is often mentioned: the sloped platforms, which would have a too steep incline to be legal. At the same time there are platforms with even steeper inclines in use at other stations for years already
Its laughable to only have 8 tracks for a city like Stuttgart, e.g. Zürich with only 2/3 of Stuttgarts population has 16 one way tracks + 6 pass through ones
Typically, the costs are estimated to be low in order to obtain approval for construction from politicians. If construction is approved, the true costs will be revealed.
Zurich did "something similar" as in extending the trainstation underground and putting main national train lines underground. it was a huge success. but zurich didn't make the mistake to get rid of the above ground rails, which are still in good use today and the next peripheral extensions on its way.
Imagine: it was planned to cost around 2.6 billion Euros. Currently they estimate it to cost around 11.45 billion Euros. And still they can tell when it will be completely operational. And then when it will go into operation completely there are some experts saying that it won't meet the capacity required for the role it is supposed to take as a major railway hub. It could end up as a massive vanity project and as a massive failure. Possibly its record is already worse than that of the "eternal" construction of the airport near Berlin. What's even more frustrating is the fact that none of the decision makers have to fear any repercussions. Neither our political nor our legal system provides for any means of holding any of them acountable for what in the end taxpayers will have to pay. Hence that kind of misuse of power continues and will continue. It's a disgrace.
Stuttgart is not the only city in Germany that has either a terminus station or a central station with too little capacity. Stuttgart 21 will and should not be the last project of its size
Most major cities in Europe that have had a railway since at least 1910 have a central station.... Madrid has had its tunnel between Chammartin and Atocha for years. In France, Marseille will imitate Stuttgart with a 6-track underground station and keep the station on the surface... Let's imagine Paris with a similar system (5 terminal stations)
Frankfurt, Munich, and Hamburg will be the next major stations Deutsche Bahn ist going to modernise. At least for Frankfurt main station they plan to build an additional tunnel as well.
You can look how your lugguage will roll down the platforms with this one, they aren't level. And 06:20 gives the hint, that an underground station wasn't even neccessary, because it's not right on the line and trains have to take a detour, nonetheless. Having the overground rebuilt could've saved a lot. Oh, and do you now Frankfurt (Main) central station? It also is a head station and performs well with trains coming in and out. With a lot of Nort/South highspeed trains going through.
3:10 - ah yes, I'm already looking forward to everyone traveling that line always complaining about the "bottleneck Stuttgart", where you will basically always get an extra delay, because no platform is currently available... 😂
Unser „Cleverle“ Lothar Späth soll in den 1980er Jahren einen Helikopter Flug über Stuttgart gemacht haben und dabei kam die Idee aus dem für die Schienen- und Bahninfrastruktur genutzten Land wertvolles Bauland im Herzen der Stadt zu generieren 😊
In den 80er Jahren plante man in Stuttgart noch einen 4-gleisigen Tiefbahnhof für den Hochgeschwindigkeitsverkehr zusätzlich zum bestehenden Kopfbahnhof. Lothar Späth war Ministerpräsident bis 1991. Im August 1993 beauftragte der damalige Bahnchef Heinz Dürr den Architekten Meinhard von Gerkan, Varianten für einen neuen Bahnhof am Rosensteinpark zu entwickeln. Daraus entstand dann die Idee einen 8 gleisigen Tiefbahnhof zu bauen und das freiwerdende Gelände städtebaulich zu nutzen. Auch inspiriert von dem HafenCity Projekt in Hamburg. 1994 wurde das Projekt Stuttgart 21 offiziell vorgestellt. 1997 gewann der Architekt Christoph Ingenhoven den Architektenwettbewerb für den neuen Tiefbahnhof. 2000/2001 Erwarb die Stadt Stuttgart das freiwerdende Gelände von der DB. Cleverer Schachzug der Stuttgarter.
in indonesia, we make the first HSR project in 2015, and it already finished & start operation last year 2023 and (some) people still complain : "gosh, this project was delayed & overcost, such a waste project" meanwhile me watching this video & also knowing america making HSR project for decades be like : "I guess we're not that bad, huh?"
Building something new is MUCH, MUCH easier than retrofitting something into existing infrastructure. Imagine one of your village houses having modern technology retrofitted into them vs. simply building a new modern building.
Whenever government invests in big road infrastructure, creates extra lanes and makes sure car traffic can expand in the future, it does not hesitate to put in a few more millions in the project. But when it's public transport or bike lanes, governments make sure to scrutinize that the project is really necessary and not a "waste". Stop the car and invest in public transport.
Not one of the biggest - just one of the most expensive. The basic idea is burying the railway station - to have the area used by the railway station for real estate profits. Zurich for example kept the ground floor tracks and railway station, added underground tracks and business area.
The added ground tracks of Zürich did cost in 2014 more per kilometer (5 km) then S21 (57 km) will cost in 2025. Stuttgart is simply considerably more hilly than Zürich. The planned underground addition of Frankfurt Hbf will be more comparable with Zürich.
Looks like UK and Germany are in the lead of delayed construction projects in Europe and railway problems. The A9 isn't fully a dual carriageway (was due for completion in 2025), Edinburgh Trams opened three years late, HS2 scaled back. Berlin Airport opened significantly overbudget and late. Both countries experience railway overcrowding and delays.
I think it's a real shame they want to throw away all of the existing land forever for shortsighted real-estate. They keep doing the same in Belgian cities. In a time when more people want to take the train, why are we just throwing those right of ways away when we know how hard it is to find new ones? Personally I also liked the old configuration better. It's also easier to maintain and better for the railway employees who get to work in daylight.
Es ging also nie wirklich um einen bessern Bahnhof. So hat man es natürlich den Menschen verkauft. Aber diese Art der Vorgehensweise brachte all die Probleme mit sich, alles musste sich diesem Ziel unter ordnen.
Munich, Frankfurt and Karlsruhe are the main destinations. It's a terminus because geography makes it easier to enter and exit the same way, also it was a popular model in 1928 when this was built.
@@volkerr. Currently it takes 1h25 to reach the 100 km distant Strasbourg... they will have to cut that by half to possibly make a decent Paris-Bratislava "HSR" route....
100 years ago when the station was built, there were no high speed trains. People didn't think that far ahead. Those dead end stations used to be alot more common back then. If i remember correctly the Munich Main Station is similar (dead-end).
@@ivicaanic5213 Everybody in Germany knows what it will bring: Less capacity to Stuttgart's central station and even more delays. You should inform yourself how terribly this project was planned. Also, everybody in the Stuttgart region knew about the engineering challenges beforehand, that's why less complex alternative solutions were proposed. But politics and the companies that earn billions with this project didn't want those. They wanted to build the most complex, most expensive solution that would bring maximum disturbance to the city during building time and would not offer sufficient capacity later on.
@@olli2591 I do not agree, watching regularly DB clips about progress of the project it will impact positevly railway transport in this part of Europe, yes I know there are a lot of people against it but I guess it is normal for Germany, everyone knows the best 🙂
There never was any protest against high speed rail. Only against a political project, corrupted by real estate speculators and with only that in mind trying to figure out the most proper solution. Which of course couldn’t work 😢
I kinda grew up with Stuttgart 21, was much to young to understand all the hate and protests at my young age but every time I heard about the plan, I just thought it sounded amazing and something worth enduring. Now obviously I've been brought to the point of cursing the damn construction more than once, especially in recent years where the whole main station is just a mess (for the foreigners reading this; you have to walk 5-10 minutes from the city train station to the long distance regional and intercity station, going all around the damn construction site) and you'll find yourself either running up the station stairs with your luggage wrapped around you like a lunatic or missing your train more than once. So I still wouldn't protest and think it's an ambitious but great project but I also can't wait to see it finally finished.
I hope they add this route project in train sim world before it releases in real life it would be so good to have this in the sim before it opens in real life
A great video. Germany needs many more projects like this after decades of under-investment in infrastructure. Unfortunately, such projects with huge cost overruns and delays undermine their very premise.
Stuttgart 21 is a real estate project. Replacing a 16 track train station with a 8x2 track train station does not justify the cost, the damage and the disturbance of the city. Most of the "benefits" are already achieved by opening of Wendlingen - Ulm line, which is also connected to current main station. And this, without cutting the Gäubahn. Now with the new law, even the real estate part of the project is not secure anymore. And the sitation itself is already too small to be a future proof project. I personally don't think that the tracks on the surface will be demolished for a long time. It will reach a status quo, where both train stations are in use in some capacity. The dream of Rosenstein quarter won't be realised before 2050.
Absolutely amazing wonder of the world! Nothing wrong with being late with such an impossible engineering accomplishment being proven possible to achieve. It's going to put Stuttgart on every tourists radar for certain and improve just about everything in Europe. Fantastic news.
I wonder if the new high speed station at the airport will get similar ICE service to the Cologne airport station. That's a meagre 7 per day in both directions combined. In Cologne they even built a massive double track flyover that is used by those 7 trains. Stuttgart airport is not the busy hub of Frankfurt airport, so stopping ICEs probably looses more passengers due to the extra travel time than it gains. In addition DB Fernverkehr, the ICE operating subsidiary of German railways has to pay for the station stop and the extra crew work time. As they don't get any subsidiea for this, the station will mostly just see regional service.
There will be no high-speed connection from Stuttgart to Zürich. It's not possible to upgrade the current connection to high speed. Just to higher speeds. But it won't beat the longer route via Karlsruhe and Basel time wise. For a new high-speed line there is not enough demand. The landscape is unsuitable (which makes it expensive). And the larger towns along the old route will heavily oppose this, as they won't benefit of it.
Though international experts said a combination station with upper- and underground station was by far the better solution - some politicians with strong connections to private property investors brought it through against all protests and common sense. Some even work nowadays for that companies and make real good money 😩😢
The property is owned since 2001 by the City of Stuttgart. Good deal for Stuttgart to buy it back then. As nothing is sold yet, it's pure speculation who might profit. There is a development contest by the city for this area (Stuttgart Rosenstein Project). The investors will have thus no freedom what to built on a plot they buy. Not much on the design or the time frame either.
I understand the set backs but 31 years! Usually countries build several national infrastructure projects in that time. I am surprised that Germany has so many beleagured projects that take so long.
Germans talking about this project as if it's a big deal or a pinnacle of construction and engineering is a window into how they have deteriorated. They are championing and celebrating this while countries in Asia have done much bigger projects in terms of money and size , more futuristic projects and plenty of them in tenth of the time taken by the germans . This shows how far the Europeans have fallen behind in terms of infrastructure,innovation and efficiency.
To compare the big green field infrastructure projects in autocratic asian countries with S21, in the centre of an ancient european city while keeping running the already existing traffic, is, of course, complete nonsense. Apples and oranges.
To be honest the old train connection in Stuttgart I find dismal, I passed there on my way ulm a few times and I always noticed how long the approach to the city was, how long it was required to switch travel direction and go again, whether or not the modernising deserved all this cash, is however another story. I also think that the sheer amount of track that station uses in the middle of the city is horrible, I'd much there be parks and residential areas instead of 16 Tracks and their connections
Still cheaper than 16 miles of underground metro line proposed in Dublin which currently stands at 30 billion euros...what the this project has done with their budget is amazing. It's all about perspective.
Okay? Feels like this video is nothing more than an intro. It doesn't really say anything other than "As expected with large infrastructure projects, there were delays and cost estimates were lowballed." No comparative exploration of alternative designs vis a vis cost versus function, no mention of how far along different pieces of it are right now, no mention of how well it will or will not be able to live up to the expectations with regard to its intended purpose.
It’s basically covert subsidies for a part of the German economy. That’s why it’s economically not so bad when costs and timelines overrun. End consumer doesn’t matter, also „attract investment“ is one of many phony reasons given why the project was needed. It simply was a way to funnel 10 billion Euros towards the industry in accordance with EU regulations, while also getting a bit of infrastructure modernization in return. Actual value maybe 2 billion Euro, the rest is subsidies.
A project actually benefiting the railway would have done what they are planning for Frankfurt HBF: Keep the whole station AND add four tracks underground for high speed rail not ending or starting in Stuttgart. Stuttgart 21 will at most have the same capacity as the old station, probably less. It‘s just a big donation to the real estate industry paid by tax money.
I always feel that the new main station is the car lobbyist's dream of a transit project. It costs a lot of money to bury a station underground, money that cannot be spend on improving rail capacity or service frequency. The station anf trai lines are out of view of drivers stuck in the famous Stuttgart traffic, so nobody is tempted to take the train the next time. The regional rail authority has already stated that planned service improvements are impossible due to capacity constrains of the new station and there is no money left to add capacity. German railways redefined "good" service quality to prove the new station can handle the planned service level. Passengers probably won't change their definition of good service and if the railways underdeliver start using cars again. The new high speed line to the east is a good investment, but completely replacing the main station in Stuttgart was not needed for this.
I wonder why Zurich main station did then not go fully underground. What makes it different? Maybe Switzerland is too poor and cannot afford such expensive projects? 😅Actually, they don't see the value and add underground stations to terminus stations for additional capacity where needed instead of needlessly dismantling what already works well. And if terminus stations are so bad, why do ICEs from Frankfurt to the Ruhr area reverse direction in Cologne as if it was a terminus? With just a couple minutes detour over the southern rail bridge the ICEs could arrive from the other side and avoid the hassle.
@@SapienzBuchse idk about that project but subway alongside light rail is best due to the extra capacity underground. They eill most likely turn those terminus’ into thru stations too
$679 billion and growing. Through its Belt and Road Initiative, China invested $679 billion on infrastructure projects in nearly 150 countries, between 2013 and 2022. These investments have meaningful economic impacts on some immediate and critical infrastructure needs for developing countries.
7:38 “Monumentalism” nowadays is a usually coverup for inability/unwillingness to address the actual societal problems. “The Line” in Saudi Arabia and “The new administrative capital” in Egypt are but a few examples of such monumentalism. Let’s hope it won’t be remembered as one of those monumental projects.
Can anyone explain to me how this project is so cheap? In Melbourne, we are “building” (endless delays) a 20 kilometre very simple airport rail link (2 stations) above ground with one bridge for about the same cost?
yep, I walk by there recently a lot, Stuttgart is a much lovely place, but I hope to see this project Stuttgart 21 finished before I die (I am 26 btw)
Good luck, German projects.....
It will be finished in December 2026.
At least you don't live in the U.S. We barely have ANY high speed railways.
You will still experience it, it will be ready at the end of 2025 and S21 will go into test operation by the end of the year in 2026. After that you can enjoy something that only exists in the world in Stuttgart. But now you can already travel with the ICE from Ulm to Wendlingen or vice versa on the new S21 route
Are you a skydiver that you doubt to see it completed?
Any infrastructure that links people together, without using cars, is a win for me.
It's ironic because Stuttgart is built on car industry
So... airports for jet airplanes are also a win? 😂
@@Verbatino yeah, if the urban area is big enough to warrant one. Driving is stressfull and unpleasant, any alternative is better.
At first glance it looks like this...but this was never to make mass transport better. The Project is about real estate. There is a lot of money to be made in the huge area where the old tracks were. Stuttgart is one of the richest Citys in Germany. Some say the new Station can handle less traffic than the old. What makes me think that could be true? Germany has one of the worst Trains Services in Europe, overpriced and famous for its delays. It was cut back the last years by ex Daimler Benz, now DB CEOs. I wonder why? But i might have something to do with our Car Industry.
Stuttgart had a working train station in that place before. A better train station. Now Stuttgart has a giant never ending construction site that most probably will be less capable when finished, costs a multifold of what was estimated and all just for a minor amount of money to be made by real estate. This project was doubtful when it was conceptualised and it has turned into a full blown desaster that is completely disproportionate.
Also police blinded a pensioner who was protesting against this madness. Police never gets sentenced in Germany.
"High speed line to Zürich". I think 130Km/h is possible in places, but the Gäubahn is mostly very wiggly and part of it is only single track.
Funny how metro line 18 in Guangzhou has a higher top speed than this "high-speed rail" connection. Germany is a pretty great place to live in, but in some aspects it's so far behind.
There is not even a ICE service between Stuttgart and Zürich, just a regular InterCity
@@Ruzzky_Bly4t Germany has a completely different rail system. We can transport military and goods on highspeed rails aswell. This is due to our history when the railsystem was build. So now it is a compromise. The faster rail systems in the world where especially build for high speeds. In Germany existing trails mainly upgraded. So we have multi use in case of a war for example but not as fast puplic transportation.
@@nicoxxl26 that was true but isn't any more. In fact freight traffic via rail has been neglected for decades. And the latest high speed railway lines are all running while the old railway tracks are still operational for regional passenger service and freight traffic. That applies to the latest high speed connection between Stuttgart and Ulm as well as the connections between Frankfurt and Cologne, München and Nürnberg, Stuttgart and Mannheim/Karlsruhe, Würzburg and Hannover. In fact, our politicians don't even intent to improve freight transport via rail as can read in the latest plan for federal traffic development - despite the fact that this could have a major impact on our emissions of climate relevant gases. One reason for that is the choice of federal ministers for traffic which during the last decades have always been staunch lobbyists for our automobile industry.
In the end climate change isn't really a concern for politicians despite all rethoric - the worse the more right-leaning politicians are.
Germany has 140km/h urban rail (S-Bahn) lines as well.
The biggest challenge for this project is bureaucracy
and protesters
Every single delay was caused by protesters.
Without them it would have finished with just 1 year delay due to some accidents.
no, corruption. Without it, we'd have kept 8 tracks more and saved 8 billions.
And the expansion of the stone where they want to make the tunnels.
And the funds.
And the safety regulations. (Or you count that as bureaucracy?)
The biggest challenge in Germany for everything😊
such videos (about long-lasting projects) never take inflation into account. 2.5B eur in 1995 equals 9.5B eur in 2023.
of cause, a part of the money was spent earlier then 2023.
but the premise - "the price is quadrupled!!!" - is annoying
Including a change of currency
Plus COVID + inflation + it only started in 2010. Why did the water draining and rock not being foreseen even with the original project
You simply didn't count delay as loss
Despite what the protestors said - btw they did not even accept the referendum that was 63% in favour of the project- Stuttgart 21 was necessary. High-speed connections to the west and east would have been impossible.
The time to get to Ulm was cut from 90minutes to 30 minutes. The time to get to the airport will be cut from 30 minutes to 6 minutes. These are some massive speed gains.
That the connection of the gäubahn to the south was added too late in the project is IMHO the biggest problem. It now needs an 11km tunnel - most of it unnecessarily tunneling under a forest.
The referendum was held in whole baden-württemberg even though only the people in and around stuttgart have to deal with the problems the Project and the construction work brings for 14 years now.
@@noahh.9120not really. First of all the people that live along the Gäubahn have to deal with disruptions for 8-10 years. The people of Ulm benefitted greatly from the high speed line. Also most of the people in Stuttgart aren’t affected at all. It’s only the people living next to the station that have to deal with the noise. And finally: it’s mainly financed by Germany and Baden-Württemberg. So why only ask people in Stuttgart?
The hostility towards infrastructure projects is annoying. Just because bored pensioners want to protest again and don’t want any noise does not mean the country can just stop.
The high-speed line to Ulm has nothing to do with Stuttgart 21. Stuttgart 21 also only cuts down the time by less then 10 minutes.
And that is only if the tunnels from Stuttgart 21 towards the Airport get approved.
And if Stuttgart 21 gets approved. WHcih both is still not certain, since they both don't follow regulations for safety.
It also decreases the truthput of trains per hour compared to the old trainstation.
@@noahh.9120 The outcome however affects the whole region. Many people in Baden-Württemberg travel to the regional capital (Stuttgart) on a regular basis. Be it for work, shopping or events.
@@tobiwan001and this is why I am of the opinion that referendum should always require 2/3 majority. It's not like a vote in a parliament.
One fun fact about the new high speed line Stuttgart - Ulm:
Instead of the usual 300km/h the line was designed to only allow 250km/h in order to better follow the existing motorway and avoid additional fragmentation of the countryside.
After construction started, some engineers figured out that by realigning some tunnel sections away from the motorway it would haven been possible to build the line for 300 km/h. Because of these realignments being in tunnels no additional fragmentation would have happened. There was also no significant price difference.
Unfortunately, it was too late to change the ongoing construction.
So the chance to speed up journeys even further and future proof the line at modern HSL standards has been missed.
I mean China builds new lines at 350 km/h and Germany accidentally misses 300km/h for no good reason.
China doesn’t have to concern itself with trivial things like public opinion or what the voters think.
Yes, but in this case nobody would have objected to a different rail tunnel alignment in the country side. So there are many places where your argument is valid, but here I don't see it.
I just wanted to highlight that 250 km/h is no longer considered state of the art for high speed. I mean some lesser used Chinese high speed lines are just planned for 200km/h. But all this talking about Paris-Bratislava let me feel the project owner believe it is not just some provincial connection.
China is 20 times bigger than Germany, distances are bigger...
@@SapienzBuchse Yeah, I love the 320km/h train to Paris. I wish all of Europe's trains are that fast! For about the same distance, I could get to Paris in 3 hrs, but more than 6 hrs for Amsterdam. That sucks.
Someone always objects. A tunnel needs air vents. And when you build these in a forest someone would be against it.
All megaprojects since the three failed pyramids of Pharaoh Sneferu have suffered structural setbacks and financial and schedule overruns. Germany, like every other country, has had its share of these “disasters”, all of which have then miraculously become landmarks that are admired the world over. Nobody complains about the Elbphilharmonie and its price tag anymore, but everyone who sees it from afar or visits it is full of admiration. The same goes for the Sydney Opera House, almost every great cathedral ever built, and so on. Stuttgart 21 is no exception.
Well said, thank you
The problem with this "megaproject" is that its capacity falls short of projected passenger demands. All of Deutsche Bahn's projects fail. Just take a look at the "new" Augsburg Hbf, a massive fail as well.
@@oberpenneraffe Was gibts denn am Augsburger Hbf auszusetzen?
BER? Very expensive but still bad
Noone complains about the Elbphilharmonie anymore? Are you living under a rock? You don't talk to people frim Hamburg often, do you? And while we're at massive cost overrun failures... the BER is hardly considered a landmark. That's 2 out of 3 of the highest profile cost overrun failures. The third - Stuttgart 21 - is still to be seen. But thus far your point has no legs to stand on.
HS2: 'Allow me to introduce myself.'
Channel tunnel here. Excuse me.
@@DrBallSac Everybody loves the Channel Tunnel and it was a massive success. HS2 costs ten times more and is decades behind.
Channel Tunnel was built more or less on time, costs were £9 billion, that's a meager 1.6 cost overrun to the foreseen £5.5 billion.
S21 ist now at 11.5 billion €, factor 2.5 over initial estimate of 4.5 billion.
HS2 started at around 31 bn and guesstimations are now between 98 and 170 bn - depending which scope and whom you ask. So factor 3 ish.
Currently the challenge ist led by HS2, but S21 isn't finished by far. There is still hope for us Germans 💪
California High Speed Rail: "hold my beer."
U are all newbies! Prokop/Beograd Centar. Works started during Titos reign still not finished maybe till 2027? 😁
Easily the biggest issue with Stuttgart 21 in my opinion is that the station only has 8 tracks, the old station had 16 terminus tracks, which is roughly the same capacity. If it had 12 tracks it would have a lot more support.
Today most regional lines starts/ends at the main station. When the new station is ready, regional lines will be combined so that 2 trains becomes 1 just passing through the station and continuing on to the other "extreme" direction. Furthermore, with the ETCS level 2 (And in the future LEVEL 3 and 4) the efficiency and speeds of trains arriving and departing will be drastically improved.
Jaja. Weil‘s das ZDF gesagt hat, gell? :)
Ich bin mir sicher, dass bei einem Investitionsvolumen von 11 Milliarden Euro, tausend und abertausende Male nachgerechnet, geforscht und überprüft wird bis man die Anzahl der Gleise festlegt.
Aber die Medienagenturen wissen es wahrscheinlich besser…
Do you even undestand the difference between a Kopfbahnhof ( Terminus) and the Durschfahrt ( pass through ) Station ?
@@prashantvengurlekar7931 If he didn't then he wouldn't write 8 in one case roughly the same capacity as 16 in the other case.
I don't think the protesters were protesting about the number of platforms.
New York be like. Only 12 billion for 100km of track, tunnels, bridges and a station. Well that’s a bargain.
The LIRR extension project (a new underground line to grand central terminal) costed 12,5 billion and that was only 3,5 miles of track and 4 tunnels (above each other)
Boston's Central Artery Tunnel wants to have a word with both... $25 billion to put a highway underground.
@ ah the big dig. Building a underground highway that fixes nothing
It's a joke. The amount of time taken to reach the platform from the entrance shows sheer disrespect the authorities have for daily commuters.
I'm all for new rail infrastructure. The problem is the destruction of the existing one! An addition to the existing station would have been far better and cheaper.
The existing station could have served regional trains and trains ending in Stuttgart, while the new station with 4 tracks and less tunnels could have served the long distance.
The tunnel Bad Cannstatt and to Ober and Untertürkheim, the new yard, the P-Option and the Pfaffensteigtunnel wouldn't be necessary, still you would have a lot more capacity.
Exactely
@@HolllgerrrHeckbut with this solution some people couldn’t make billions with real estate land speculation
This was one of the versions under consideration. But assuming the airport station and the Abstellbahnhof were the same you'd still be building 70% of Stuttgart 21, but now there's the additional cost of modernising the old station and infrastructure (including the two 19th Century tunnels it relies on) - all of which has to be done whilst the station is in use, far more disruptive than S21. Plus you have to factor in not selling off the land and the long term loss of income for the city that would result. This is probably the most expensive option, is far worse in terms of redundancy (unless you build the two additional tunnels), and although there'd be undoubtedly more platforms that doesn't necessarily mean more capacity as the same bottleneck would exist in the north of the city. Probably the fancy new station would be empty most of the time, unless it's used much more extensively by regional trains and then the old station would sit empty.
@@Talon5516-tx3ih Du hast wohl schon den Schlichter Heiner Werner Geißler vergessen..? Der hatte zusammen mit den Schweizer Experten - SMA und Partner - eine Ausarbeitung vorgelegt, die den Kombibahnhof als bessere und günstigere Lösung präferiert hatte.
4 Gleise unten - mehr gibt der Raum und die Umgebung (Mineralwasserquellen usw.) genau genommen nicht her - und 10-12 Gleise oberirdisch. Aber das Ziel war ja die Grundstücke zu bekommen und NICHT einen geeigneten Bahnhof zu bauen…
@@volkerr. The land is owned since 2000/2001 by the City of Stuttgart. The city will decide what will be built there (Project Stuttgart Rosenstein).
11 billion euro is not much for 100kms of tracks, tunnels and bridges.
In Sydney this money would get you 1/10th of the project.
Maybe. But in Sydney such a project probably would make sense.
The main issue was to put everything underground. Of course a terminus station is very inefficient if you want lots of HS rail that does not actually terminate. Not only the direction change that costs 5-9 minutes extra, but also trains blocking each other. A single delayed train can easily start a chain reaction.
They should've built a smaller underground station just for high speed rail. Or alternatively, leave a few terminus tracks for trains of the Gäubahn. You could even build these slightly underground so you can still have green on top.
It depends. There are operational decisions you can make to ensure these turnarounds work faster. For instance, by ensuring a train driver is at the end of the platform to immediately take over the train. It may make crew rosters complex, but it is not impossible. Also, the approach to Stutgart station is actually very efficient with the flying junctions on the approach, meaning that incoming trains don't block outgoing trains. Also, in NL, at Utrecht Station they also turn around terminating trains from Rotterdam/Den Haag to Leeuwarden/Groningen/Enschede due to the track layout around Utrecht. This isn't something that takes that much time.
Zürich Durchmesserlinie.
Terminal station remains on top.
@@91Durktheturk I've witnessed a few times recently train drivers waiting at the end of the platform for an incoming ICE. So they do this already, though it isn't ideal. Also I assume when driverless trains become a reality there'll be no reason why a train can't make a 30 second stop and change direction.
Stuttgart's Hbf is more efficient than it could be, but you see trains waiting all the time, blocked by other trains. The flying junctions sort of make it into a 2x 8-platform station and within those 8 platforms incoming and outgoing trains still constantly get in each other's way.
But they wanted to sell of the land where the old station and all its tracks are/were to real estate developers. That is the main purpose of the whole project, that's why your very reasonable and also kind of obvious solution was off the table and that is the reason why Stuttgart 21 is such a dumpster fire as a train station! 💁
Driverless trains have existed and been used in subways for almost two decades now. I don't think we're gonna see them be economical to use on above-ground rail lines anytime soon. I think if it was a good idea, it would have been done by now.
The thing about the potential damage to tunnels by quickly expanding and contracting rock around them isn't just the expansion and contraction. It's also the moisture itself. The rock rubbing through any moisture protection anytime a major bit of rain hits can deteriorate the structural integrity by soaking it faster than a more stable environment would. Even with the metre-thick tunnel walls they're using, there's only two tracks out each way in a single tube, so a single structural integrity issue will disable the entire station. Some of the above ground terminus platforms should have been planned to be retained from the get go, especially for the connection to Zürich, but developers always get the land they want to build pricy buildings to sell to rich mates.
There are 4 tracks out each way, each in its own tube. By contrast in the old station 99% of the trains go through one of two 19th century tunnels. Stuttgart is choc-full of tunnels, but that doesn't stop the crazies insisting that they're impossible to build here.
You perfectly summarized the challenges the engineers faced.
Glad they found solutions to those problems.
Persevere…. it will be worth it. In years to come other major centres will be wishing they had been as visionary as Stuttgart is.
I am sure You never have been in Stuttgart
Persevere... as in just let the government shovel more and more billions of Euros into this hole.
@@RickTheClipper actually you have no idea where I’ve been or how many times I have been to Stuttgart. Never assume anything about anyone or anything.
@@Hongaars1969 yeah, very visionary, spending billions of euros and decades of work for a smaller, less efficient train Station.
6:19 A small correction There is no high-speed line to Zurich (and none is planned). The line in question is the so-called Gäubahn/ Obere Neckarbahn, a largely single-track line to the south. Its later connection to the main station is not good, but on the whole bearable, as 2-3 tracks can be left at the main station for these passengers with “relatively” little effort. More Importantly, a good transfer point to the S-Bahn has been set up in the south of the city, so that a traveler will most likely only need 10 minutes longer. On the other hand, the actual new high-speed line to Ulm has already been in operation since 2022 and was thus completed 4 years before the rest.
To have a part of the terminal staying open would not be catastrophic - you still have all the new infrastructure. And you could even build buildings above tracks. Look at Shinagawa, Tokyo, where exactly this happens right now.
I think the main problem is that architecture has become performative: you have these big names doing things that are supposed to wow us in the moment, but those structures age badly and look old quickly. I would rather see a city like Stuttgart embrace it's historical architecture, including it's train station, and do something more subdued and based on traditional materials and techniques which age well and are aesthetically pleasant and grounded in local culture.
The whole project started as a real estate project: the rails had to be removed to generate land in the heart of the city. Where it’s most expensive.
In order to generate building land from virtually worthless tracks, the station had to be removed. Moving the train station from the city center was not politically feasible.
Thanks for explaining, this makes sense.
@@HyuLilium you‘re welcome. 👋
Yes, but now it costs 12 billion and needs additional 10 billion to even work. So this real estate is prohibitive expensive.
@@sod1237The train station is fundet by the tax payer, not the development.
Construction company earn twice. Building a rail station and developing the city center.
@@karstenschuhmann8334 That is the bitter truth.
just imagine, they would have pumped all these billions into actually be a great service provider, instead of wasting it all on a prestige project!
then the 50€ deutschlandticket would have stayed at 50€ im sure!
3:44 I was at the shown student demonstration and I was 12 years old. It was terrible to see the violence with which the police acted against the young people. Several police officers were convicted of violence in office. One man lost his sight due to water cannon.
Der Staatsschlägertrupp hatte seinen Spaß
@@sumlkar-v2j
- 380 charges were filed against officers, 19 led to investigations
- One officer was sentenced to 18 months probation for excessive baton use.
- Two officers received seven-month suspended sentences. The water cannon commander fined 90 daily units.
- Another officer fined 120 daily units at €50 each for using pepper spray unjustifiably; colleagues reported him.
- A fourth officer’s case closed with a fine.
- Stuttgarts Police President Siegfried Stumpf fined €15,600 for negligent bodily harm.
- 2015 media evidence prompted criminal complaints for methods proposed to violate internal police regulations.
- November 2015 - Stuttgart Administrative Court deemed the park-clearing operation unlawful and excessive, emphasizing the protest as a lawful assembly under Article 8 of the German Constitution.
ich war damals 34 und einer der polizisten im schlosspark. war einer meiner schlimmsten tage bei der polizei.
Building tunnels is expensive. And in the last few years it has become more and more expensive.
This made S21 more expensive. But this becomes very relative when comparing S21 with recently started or soon-to-be-started railway tunnel projects. At S21, a one-kilometer new rail route costs approximately 200 million Euro. Those recently started or soon-to-be-started railway projects with a similarly high percentage of tunnels will cost two or three times more per kilometer.
The new station will be a setback to my sport. Atleast twice in a week sbahn and DB bahn made me fit with their delays forcing me run between sbahn to main station to catch my train to Karlsruhe and vice-versa.I am sad now.
Dont worry, because the new train station can not accomodate the amount of people who use it, you can now train your upper body by pushing all the other passengers away when you go to your train
Budapest Hungary is planning to do a similar project. Considering it took us 3 decade to build a 7km long metro line... im afraid
What worries me in particular is the selling off of so much railway right of way. Instead of consuming this highly functional land for real estate development, why can't they just build a new district somewhere closeby with a train station?
The rails are underground. There will be Apartments and a Park on top.
Where do you have in mind?
@@Talon5516-tx3ih Could be anywhere but the southern side of Sommerrain seems underutilized. Only 10 minutes from Hbf with S-trains every 10 minutes.
THe issue with that is, that building omn the former railway infrastructuzre is that it will increase tempretures in the city drastically, and will worsen air quality a lot
it's a packed metro area, not much free space to find nearby without chopping thousands of trees
Delay and inflated costs is normal in Germany but this is an extreme case. All main stations across the county are now being turned into those "modern" buildings, I wish they could at least leave the frontage.
Leipzig still use its old main station building, that is more then 100 years old.
They are Maintaining the historical station building for Stuttgart 21
but... S21 will keep the frontage...
@@irg008 and @ariantaheri4638 Oh, that's a good news.
1. the old station building will remain in Stuttgart
2. the building is not really super historic. It was built by Paul Bonatz who operated in the 1920s. It is anachronistic, as truly modern building already existed in the 1920 (see Barcelona pavillion in the 1920s). Because of its anachronism, the Bonatz building is kinda trash tbh.
there is no high speed line to zurich to be connected 6:30
Living in the Stuttgart area from 1994 to 1999, I was impressed and intrigued with the plan. I'm sorry to see it is still facing so many obstacles, and am reminded of the "Big Dig" project I would hear about in Boston over many decades, which appeared to me to have provided great benefit when I lived in that area from 2011 to 2014.
A brief correction. "The new underground station can't be connected to the high speed rail line to Switzerland" - what! There is no high speed rail line to the south. There is the Gaubahn, which winds its way at a very sedate pace down to Singen. It is about as high speed as tortoise, without the same level of reliability.
Mistake OR megaproject? Why can't it be both?
Edit: by the way, I'm curious to see what will happen when the notoriously unreliable Deutsche Bahn loses access to one of the tunnels leading to the station, or to a platform or two. This entire thing appears to be built for precision and efficiency. Yeah, good luck with that...
Why would the DB lose access to a tunnel?
The interesting part is Germany build one station in the same time china build the biggest train network from scratch.
It’s a huge difference to build from scratch or change an existing century old infrastructure
I am in Stuttgart huptbahnhof and watching this news 😊
S21 aka if you commute to stuttgart like 2-3 times a month "I wonder what the station looks like this time"
Missing the central criticism against Stuttgart 21. It's not a good railway project. It's a real estate project and corrupt money funnel to construction companies owned in part by the planners. The entire project was envisioned weeks after DB stopped being state owned. It has severe problems with potential flooding and evacuation in case of fires. It is technically not even a train station, but a train stop, because it doesn't fulfill the official requirements to be anything else.
DB has never stopped being state owned, the german state has always been owning 100% of Deutsche Bahn shares.
You didn't focus on the main problem: The capacity of the new station will be less than the old one, this is not an investment in public transportation infrastructure, it's just a vanity project for old farts getting chauffeured around in a Daimler-Benz
And thats just a lie.
there is zero benefit for indivual mobility. because of this project, stuttgart has been a completel mess for cars for over a decade now.
Im not that deep into it but doesnt ECTS with a higher level allow for higher speeds and less distance between the trains + a lot of trains won't terminate at Stuttgart?
It seems NIMBYs are universal.
What kind of nimbys have you find there?
@@mr.priman As the video explained, there where NIMBYs demonstrating against some trees being cut down... instead of just planting some new trees on some field...
@@olska9498Those trees were like 100 years old and under historic protection. They rephrased the protection clause, took away the historic protection agency's veto rights and did it anyways.
@@theod0r how about just replanting trees? These are trees... you can just plant trees and in a 100 years you will have 100-year-old trees...
One issue with the new underground station which is often mentioned: the sloped platforms, which would have a too steep incline to be legal. At the same time there are platforms with even steeper inclines in use at other stations for years already
I was here in 2017. Construction site was huge. Project is cool, but on the other hand, locals have been enduring construction for many years...
yeah we love walking 15 minutes to the subway ...
The biggest issue is the capacity.
Its laughable to only have 8 tracks for a city like Stuttgart, e.g. Zürich with only 2/3 of Stuttgarts population has 16 one way tracks + 6 pass through ones
Typically, the costs are estimated to be low in order to obtain approval for construction from politicians.
If construction is approved, the true costs will be revealed.
Zurich did "something similar" as in extending the trainstation underground and putting main national train lines underground. it was a huge success. but zurich didn't make the mistake to get rid of the above ground rails, which are still in good use today and the next peripheral extensions on its way.
Imagine: it was planned to cost around 2.6 billion Euros. Currently they estimate it to cost around 11.45 billion Euros. And still they can tell when it will be completely operational. And then when it will go into operation completely there are some experts saying that it won't meet the capacity required for the role it is supposed to take as a major railway hub.
It could end up as a massive vanity project and as a massive failure. Possibly its record is already worse than that of the "eternal" construction of the airport near Berlin.
What's even more frustrating is the fact that none of the decision makers have to fear any repercussions. Neither our political nor our legal system provides for any means of holding any of them acountable for what in the end taxpayers will have to pay. Hence that kind of misuse of power continues and will continue.
It's a disgrace.
horrible project
Stuttgart is not the only city in Germany that has either a terminus station or a central station with too little capacity. Stuttgart 21 will and should not be the last project of its size
Most major cities in Europe that have had a railway since at least 1910 have a central station....
Madrid has had its tunnel between Chammartin and Atocha for years.
In France, Marseille will imitate Stuttgart with a 6-track underground station and keep the station on the surface...
Let's imagine Paris with a similar system (5 terminal stations)
Frankfurt, Munich, and Hamburg will be the next major stations Deutsche Bahn ist going to modernise. At least for Frankfurt main station they plan to build an additional tunnel as well.
You can look how your lugguage will roll down the platforms with this one, they aren't level.
And 06:20 gives the hint, that an underground station wasn't even neccessary, because it's not right on the line and trains have to take a detour, nonetheless. Having the overground rebuilt could've saved a lot. Oh, and do you now Frankfurt (Main) central station? It also is a head station and performs well with trains coming in and out. With a lot of Nort/South highspeed trains going through.
3:10 - ah yes, I'm already looking forward to everyone traveling that line always complaining about the "bottleneck Stuttgart", where you will basically always get an extra delay, because no platform is currently available... 😂
the background noise (musak?) is too loud and makes it impossible to hear the narration properly. properly.. I can't be the only one to be put off!
Unser „Cleverle“ Lothar Späth soll in den 1980er Jahren einen Helikopter Flug über Stuttgart gemacht haben und dabei kam die Idee aus dem für die Schienen- und Bahninfrastruktur genutzten Land wertvolles Bauland im Herzen der Stadt zu generieren 😊
In den 80er Jahren plante man in Stuttgart noch einen 4-gleisigen Tiefbahnhof für den Hochgeschwindigkeitsverkehr zusätzlich zum bestehenden Kopfbahnhof.
Lothar Späth war Ministerpräsident bis 1991.
Im August 1993 beauftragte der damalige Bahnchef Heinz Dürr den Architekten Meinhard von Gerkan, Varianten für einen neuen Bahnhof am Rosensteinpark zu entwickeln. Daraus entstand dann die Idee einen 8 gleisigen Tiefbahnhof zu bauen und das freiwerdende Gelände städtebaulich zu nutzen. Auch inspiriert von dem HafenCity Projekt in Hamburg.
1994 wurde das Projekt Stuttgart 21 offiziell vorgestellt.
1997 gewann der Architekt Christoph Ingenhoven den Architektenwettbewerb für den neuen Tiefbahnhof.
2000/2001 Erwarb die Stadt Stuttgart das freiwerdende Gelände von der DB. Cleverer Schachzug der Stuttgarter.
in indonesia, we make the first HSR project in 2015, and it already finished & start operation last year 2023
and (some) people still complain : "gosh, this project was delayed & overcost, such a waste project"
meanwhile me watching this video & also knowing america making HSR project for decades be like : "I guess we're not that bad, huh?"
Building something new is MUCH, MUCH easier than retrofitting something into existing infrastructure. Imagine one of your village houses having modern technology retrofitted into them vs. simply building a new modern building.
6:20 that funding is now secured if I am not mistaken.
Whenever government invests in big road infrastructure, creates extra lanes and makes sure car traffic can expand in the future, it does not hesitate to put in a few more millions in the project. But when it's public transport or bike lanes, governments make sure to scrutinize that the project is really necessary and not a "waste".
Stop the car and invest in public transport.
Great video, thanks
Not one of the biggest - just one of the most expensive.
The basic idea is burying the railway station - to have the area used by the railway station for real estate profits.
Zurich for example kept the ground floor tracks and railway station, added underground tracks and business area.
Swiss are the most clever people in Europe. Besides the Norwegian and many others. 😂.
The added ground tracks of Zürich did cost in 2014 more per kilometer (5 km) then S21 (57 km) will cost in 2025. Stuttgart is simply considerably more hilly than Zürich.
The planned underground addition of Frankfurt Hbf will be more comparable with Zürich.
I don't understand why it only has so few tracks for such an important transport hub. I worry it might lead to even more delays.
5:06 Wow, seeing the building and my neighborhood I grew up in... didnt thought of that 😅
Looks like UK and Germany are in the lead of delayed construction projects in Europe and railway problems. The A9 isn't fully a dual carriageway (was due for completion in 2025), Edinburgh Trams opened three years late, HS2 scaled back. Berlin Airport opened significantly overbudget and late. Both countries experience railway overcrowding and delays.
So a uni graduate in engineering field can start working on this project in 1995 and retired in 2036 once this project completed.
Whats the music at 6:00
I think it's a real shame they want to throw away all of the existing land forever for shortsighted real-estate. They keep doing the same in Belgian cities. In a time when more people want to take the train, why are we just throwing those right of ways away when we know how hard it is to find new ones? Personally I also liked the old configuration better. It's also easier to maintain and better for the railway employees who get to work in daylight.
You know that with S21 there will be much more free land than with they old Station…
Fianlly, Germans can still build something worth looking at. And tens of thousands of people had good work as a result. A perfect project.
I am glad to know that over-budgeted contested building projects that take years over years do not happen just to us in Spain. 😅
The epic soundtrack and the whole story makes it a cheap corporate video instead of a report.
Es ging also nie wirklich um einen bessern Bahnhof. So hat man es natürlich den Menschen verkauft. Aber diese Art der Vorgehensweise brachte all die Probleme mit sich, alles musste sich diesem Ziel unter ordnen.
Sad part is there is no learning from both parties. Project planners don’t not consider bureaucracy. Government doesn’t improve the processes.
What is the main destination from Stuttgart ? Munich ? Francfort ?
Why is the current station in a cul-de-sac ?
Munich, Frankfurt and Karlsruhe are the main destinations. It's a terminus because geography makes it easier to enter and exit the same way, also it was a popular model in 1928 when this was built.
Dead end stations are all around the world and that’s for a (good) reason.
And the project S22 is part of EU high speed magistral from Paris to Bratislava. Later then until Kyiv I guess 😊
@@volkerr. Currently it takes 1h25 to reach the 100 km distant Strasbourg... they will have to cut that by half to possibly make a decent Paris-Bratislava "HSR" route....
100 years ago when the station was built, there were no high speed trains. People didn't think that far ahead. Those dead end stations used to be alot more common back then. If i remember correctly the Munich Main Station is similar (dead-end).
no doubts it is great project, one of the best in overall Europe currently
nice joke
@@angriboi nope, I am serious, most people do not understand engineering challenges for this projects and what would bring once it is finshed.
@@ivicaanic5213 Everybody in Germany knows what it will bring: Less capacity to Stuttgart's central station and even more delays. You should inform yourself how terribly this project was planned. Also, everybody in the Stuttgart region knew about the engineering challenges beforehand, that's why less complex alternative solutions were proposed. But politics and the companies that earn billions with this project didn't want those. They wanted to build the most complex, most expensive solution that would bring maximum disturbance to the city during building time and would not offer sufficient capacity later on.
@@olli2591 I do not agree, watching regularly DB clips about progress of the project it will impact positevly railway transport in this part of Europe, yes I know there are a lot of people against it but I guess it is normal for Germany, everyone knows the best 🙂
I'm glad to see the comments are most civil and pro high speed rail
There never was any protest against high speed rail. Only against a political project, corrupted by real estate speculators and with only that in mind trying to figure out the most proper solution. Which of course couldn’t work 😢
I kinda grew up with Stuttgart 21, was much to young to understand all the hate and protests at my young age but every time I heard about the plan, I just thought it sounded amazing and something worth enduring.
Now obviously I've been brought to the point of cursing the damn construction more than once, especially in recent years where the whole main station is just a mess (for the foreigners reading this; you have to walk 5-10 minutes from the city train station to the long distance regional and intercity station, going all around the damn construction site) and you'll find yourself either running up the station stairs with your luggage wrapped around you like a lunatic or missing your train more than once.
So I still wouldn't protest and think it's an ambitious but great project but I also can't wait to see it finally finished.
I hope they add this route project in train sim world before it releases in real life it would be so good to have this in the sim before it opens in real life
Maybe more money for the tracks would’ve been a priority.. I’m all for rail investment, but DB’s station renovations are unnecessary.
Once a project is finished, no one ever questions the cost.
that red line graph is terrible, making it seem as if the last step is so much more, but it's been like a ~1,7b increase every step of the way
A great video. Germany needs many more projects like this after decades of under-investment in infrastructure. Unfortunately, such projects with huge cost overruns and delays undermine their very premise.
Lets better not talk about Munichs second Stammstrecke 😅.
cost should be not a factor on public work , but private firms must be excludet or over seen by state goverment and unions
Stuttgart 21 is a real estate project. Replacing a 16 track train station with a 8x2 track train station does not justify the cost, the damage and the disturbance of the city.
Most of the "benefits" are already achieved by opening of Wendlingen - Ulm line, which is also connected to current main station. And this, without cutting the Gäubahn.
Now with the new law, even the real estate part of the project is not secure anymore. And the sitation itself is already too small to be a future proof project.
I personally don't think that the tracks on the surface will be demolished for a long time. It will reach a status quo, where both train stations are in use in some capacity. The dream of Rosenstein quarter won't be realised before 2050.
Absolutely amazing wonder of the world! Nothing wrong with being late with such an impossible engineering accomplishment being proven possible to achieve. It's going to put Stuttgart on every tourists radar for certain and improve just about everything in Europe. Fantastic news.
Jeder weiß Bescheid.
Natürlich brauchen wir dazu eine Dokumentation um zu beweisen das wir alle das gleiche Glauben.
Amazing already but overruns are so common in every large project now
I wonder if the new high speed station at the airport will get similar ICE service to the Cologne airport station.
That's a meagre 7 per day in both directions combined. In Cologne they even built a massive double track flyover that is used by those 7 trains.
Stuttgart airport is not the busy hub of Frankfurt airport, so stopping ICEs probably looses more passengers due to the extra travel time than it gains. In addition DB Fernverkehr, the ICE operating subsidiary of German railways has to pay for the station stop and the extra crew work time. As they don't get any subsidiea for this, the station will mostly just see regional service.
Germany does not want the Swiss to foot the bill to make that high-speed railway connection, want they not?
No. They don’t want to. They rather tend to invent the wheel again, than using other peoples knowledge. 😩
There will be no high-speed connection from Stuttgart to Zürich. It's not possible to upgrade the current connection to high speed. Just to higher speeds. But it won't beat the longer route via Karlsruhe and Basel time wise.
For a new high-speed line there is not enough demand. The landscape is unsuitable (which makes it expensive). And the larger towns along the old route will heavily oppose this, as they won't benefit of it.
Though international experts said a combination station with upper- and underground station was by far the better solution - some politicians with strong connections to private property investors brought it through against all protests and common sense.
Some even work nowadays for that companies and make real good money 😩😢
The property is owned since 2001 by the City of Stuttgart. Good deal for Stuttgart to buy it back then.
As nothing is sold yet, it's pure speculation who might profit. There is a development contest by the city for this area (Stuttgart Rosenstein Project). The investors will have thus no freedom what to built on a plot they buy. Not much on the design or the time frame either.
I understand the set backs but 31 years! Usually countries build several national infrastructure projects in that time.
I am surprised that Germany has so many beleagured projects that take so long.
Germans talking about this project as if it's a big deal or a pinnacle of construction and engineering is a window into how they have deteriorated. They are championing and celebrating this while countries in Asia have done much bigger projects in terms of money and size , more futuristic projects and plenty of them in tenth of the time taken by the germans . This shows how far the Europeans have fallen behind in terms of infrastructure,innovation and efficiency.
To compare the big green field infrastructure projects in autocratic asian countries with S21, in the centre of an ancient european city while keeping running the already existing traffic, is, of course, complete nonsense. Apples and oranges.
@@randuru there isn't precisely much ancient about downtown Stuttgart tbh
The workers in Germany dont have to do 15 Hour Shifts and earn good Money to live. China an Japan is slavery. Of course they are faster and cheaper😂
You forgot covid, inflation and general building expenditures got a lot more expensive (above inflation) since the start and budgeting.
To be honest the old train connection in Stuttgart I find dismal, I passed there on my way ulm a few times and I always noticed how long the approach to the city was, how long it was required to switch travel direction and go again, whether or not the modernising deserved all this cash, is however another story.
I also think that the sheer amount of track that station uses in the middle of the city is horrible, I'd much there be parks and residential areas instead of 16 Tracks and their connections
Greens want to keep trees ( laudable) but without the upgrade, flying and driving can't be curtailed and thus emissions.
Still cheaper than 16 miles of underground metro line proposed in Dublin which currently stands at 30 billion euros...what the this project has done with their budget is amazing. It's all about perspective.
What are you talking about? That is just wrong. €9 billion is the projected figure for the Dublin Metrolink. Could be a lot less.
Okay? Feels like this video is nothing more than an intro. It doesn't really say anything other than "As expected with large infrastructure projects, there were delays and cost estimates were lowballed." No comparative exploration of alternative designs vis a vis cost versus function, no mention of how far along different pieces of it are right now, no mention of how well it will or will not be able to live up to the expectations with regard to its intended purpose.
No mention of whether or not the fears of the protestors (groundwater, etc) have materialized or not. Just weirdly short.
" 3 decades in the making" LOL how many MEPs got consulting salaries for this
It’s basically covert subsidies for a part of the German economy. That’s why it’s economically not so bad when costs and timelines overrun. End consumer doesn’t matter, also „attract investment“ is one of many phony reasons given why the project was needed. It simply was a way to funnel 10 billion Euros towards the industry in accordance with EU regulations, while also getting a bit of infrastructure modernization in return. Actual value maybe 2 billion Euro, the rest is subsidies.
A project actually benefiting the railway would have done what they are planning for Frankfurt HBF: Keep the whole station AND add four tracks underground for high speed rail not ending or starting in Stuttgart.
Stuttgart 21 will at most have the same capacity as the old station, probably less. It‘s just a big donation to the real estate industry paid by tax money.
Was stationed near there in the 80s
I always feel that the new main station is the car lobbyist's dream of a transit project.
It costs a lot of money to bury a station underground, money that cannot be spend on improving rail capacity or service frequency.
The station anf trai lines are out of view of drivers stuck in the famous Stuttgart traffic, so nobody is tempted to take the train the next time.
The regional rail authority has already stated that planned service improvements are impossible due to capacity constrains of the new station and there is no money left to add capacity.
German railways redefined "good" service quality to prove the new station can handle the planned service level. Passengers probably won't change their definition of good service and if the railways underdeliver start using cars again.
The new high speed line to the east is a good investment, but completely replacing the main station in Stuttgart was not needed for this.
Actually it was needed because the old station was a terminus instead of a through station
I wonder why Zurich main station did then not go fully underground. What makes it different?
Maybe Switzerland is too poor and cannot afford such expensive projects? 😅Actually, they don't see the value and add underground stations to terminus stations for additional capacity where needed instead of needlessly dismantling what already works well.
And if terminus stations are so bad, why do ICEs from Frankfurt to the Ruhr area reverse direction in Cologne as if it was a terminus? With just a couple minutes detour over the southern rail bridge the ICEs could arrive from the other side and avoid the hassle.
@@SapienzBuchse idk about that project but subway alongside light rail is best due to the extra capacity underground. They eill most likely turn those terminus’ into thru stations too
$679 billion and growing.
Through its Belt and Road Initiative, China invested $679 billion on infrastructure projects in nearly 150 countries, between 2013 and 2022. These investments have meaningful economic impacts on some immediate and critical infrastructure needs for developing countries.
7:38 “Monumentalism” nowadays is a usually coverup for inability/unwillingness to address the actual societal problems. “The Line” in Saudi Arabia and “The new administrative capital” in Egypt are but a few examples of such monumentalism. Let’s hope it won’t be remembered as one of those monumental projects.
Can anyone explain to me how this project is so cheap? In Melbourne, we are “building” (endless delays) a 20 kilometre very simple airport rail link (2 stations) above ground with one bridge for about the same cost?
Because Australia is an overpriced country and usually do things inefficiently.
@@seanelias6478 totally and Melbourne especially.
@@seanelias6478 lol
Is somebody following where the money for berlin airport and stuttgart hauptbahnhof went? I mean really following the money
I'm sure Simon Whistler is on the case.